Russia's genocidal efforts in Ukraine have prompted a huge amount of fundraising, awareness raising and donations to organisations who are helping those displaced by the war. Unfortunately, a lot of the money is going towards big, multinational aid organisations, whose presence in Ukraine is negligible.

In order to get a better idea of what the situation on the ground is like, I spoke to Ada Wordsworth, a co-director of The Kharkiv and Przemyśl Project (KHARPP). Ada interrupted her studies at Oxford in Russian and Czech to travel to Przemyśl, a city in Poland, near the border with Ukraine. She initially hoped to volunteer as a translator for those fleeing from Ukraine, and this quickly developed into far wider aid work in the region. 

My conversation with Ada was incredibly educational - not only for painting a picture of the overall situation on the border, but also for outlining what needs to happen now, and where donations are most needed.

When I launched Panko in late 2021, I wanted to use it as an opportunity to explore my Ukrainian heritage and to share Ukraine with the world. Scents often transport us back to a particular time and place and can be surprisingly powerful. They allow to us travel around the world and create a sense of place within our homes - bringing reminders of open fields, forests, or cities. When I create a fragrance to be used in the home I'm trying to create a sense of place, to evoke a particular feeling. 

What I didn't expect shortly after launching was that the war in eastern Ukraine would escalate to a full scale land invasion by Russia.